Passages

[Murdoch]

A sad day. Raul Ruiz.

wtf, worst day ever.

[zedz]

A sad day. Raul Ruiz.

Very sad indeed. On the other hand, as film lovers we can hardly complain, since we got at least four lifetimes' worth of movies out of him over the past four and a bit decades, and there's a good chance that none of us will ever catch up with all of those films.

And he kept up his ornery inconsistent greatness to the very end, finishing up with what is truly a magnum opus.

[Cold Bishop]

I'm very saddened by this... I could have easily seen Ruiz go on like de Oliveira, making films past 100. However, he made films with a pace that suggested he had, and never made anything short than fascinating.

and there's a good chance that none of us will ever catch up with all of those films.

And didn't Ruiz himself put aside finished projects, precisely so they could be released "posthumously"?

[tavernier]

Jerry Leiber

[dad1153]

Veteran TV director Reza Badiyi.

[Oedipax]

Yekaterina Golubeva.

Awful! Does anyone know what happened?

[Gregory]

I've searched through numerous obits trying to learn the cause of death, but the closest I've found was an article saying that the cause of death was unknown. I assume she had been sick, because if she'd been killed in an accident or something similarly sudden there would be more coverage of the event. Even if it was expected by those who knew her, though, I'm surprised by how little is apparently being written about an actor of her caliber who died in her forties.

[Polybius]

Jerry Leiber

An absolute giant.

[antnield]

John Howard Davies, child actor (as David Lean's Oliver Twist) and subsequent producer/director at the BBC (Steptoe and Son, The Good Life, Fawlty Towers, etc).

[Sloper]

Such a familiar name from my childhood - watching all those end credits on my favourite programmes, names like John Howard Davies, Jon Plowman and Geoff Posner gradually sank into my consciousness as 'somehow important'. It was so strange, when I started getting into classic films, to discover that Davies was also the best Oliver Twist ever. I'm sure Lean's direction helped, but it really was a stand-out performance (no mean feat in a film like that), somehow managing to be incredibly vulnerable and poignant without quite slipping into mawkishness, which every other Oliver I've seen has done. I guess it was because he actually looked like he might have spent some time in a workhouse, with that drawn face and hungry look in his eyes.

[Feego]

Nick Ashford

[reaky]

Jimmy Sangster.

Quote form Hammer twitter:
"We are deeply saddened to learn of death of screenwriting legend & key part of Hammer's story, Jimmy Sangster. 2 Dec 1927 - 19 Aug 2011 RIP."

Very sad news, Jimmy wrote so many of the greatest Hammer films, Dracula Prince of Darkness was a constant in my VCR throughout my childhood.

Damn. I actually had no idea he was still alive. Can't even tell how many of the films he's written or directed that I've seen over the years.

He, along with Terence Fisher, Peter Cushing, and Christopher Lee were chiefly responsible for Hammer's vault to success in the late fifties.

Agreed, though I don't think you can underestimate Anthony Hinds' contribution - his sensibility and taste were largely what elevated Hammer in the the 50s and 60s. When he stepped down, it quickly went tits (and bums) up for Hammer.

[colinr0380]

Veteran TV director Reza Badiyi.

What an amazing list of TV credits - directing episodes of everything from The Doris Day Show and Mission: Impossible to The Incredible Hulk, Cagney & Lacey and *ahem* Baywatch and Baywatch Nights!

And the Criterion connection is that, as well as being Assistant Director on Robert Altman's first feature The Delinquents as mentioned in the obit, he was also apparently an Assistant Director on Carnival of Souls as well and has a brief cameo in the bus station scene where he pushes in front of an invisible Candace Hilligoss to buy a ticket!

[colinr0380]

John Howard Davies, child actor (as David Lean's Oliver Twist) and subsequent producer/director at the BBC (Steptoe and Son, The Good Life, Fawlty Towers, etc).

I had not connected the young boy who played Oliver Twist in the Lean film with the person who later did a sterling service to the world of British comedy! I see the article also credits him, as Head of Comedy at the BBC at the time, with helping to usher in Yes, Minister and Not The Nine O'Clock News, amongst other classic series.

(I consider Not The Nine O'Clock News to be one of the comedic high points of the early 80s, and perhaps the Python connection should have been more apparent from this sketch! Anyway I thought I would use this connection to link to that and, in lieu of the Project Nim or Rise of the Planet of the Apes thread that I was saving it for, my favourite sketch from the series!)

[dad1153]

Jimmy Kimmel Live's 'Uncle Frank,' Frank Potenza.

[Polybius]

Nick Ashford

Another songwriting giant, who also had status as a major icon of Cool.

[swo17]

Michael Showers, who had minor roles in Treme, The Tree of Life, Breaking Bad, I Love You Phillip Morris, and Traffic.

[MichaelB]

Leonard Harris, primarily a writer, but memorable as Senator Palantine in Taxi Driver.

[knives]

An obit. Terribly sad this.

[tarpilot]

Hockey is pretty much non-existent on here, but I must say I'm pretty bummed about Wade Belak, the latest in a bizarre and very sad streak of NHL deaths. Lifelong hater of the Leafs, but I loved watching him play and he seemed a total class act off the ice.

[ambrose]

Rosel Zech

[MichaelB]

Janusz Morgenstern, director of several fine films that are sadly little known outside Poland - but his greatest contribution to world cinema is probably the scene with the burning vodka shots in Ashes and Diamonds, which he devised when working as its assistant director.

[antnield]

Charles S. Dubin

[otis]

George Kuchar

[Robert de la Cheyniest]

Not cool, I saw "Hold Me While I'm Naked" when I was in college and it is still one of my very favorite experimental films.